A Day Like Any Other

I think that I already mentioned that one of the purposes of this trip is to experience Korea like Koreans. Part of this came about as a suggestion from Yooseob and MJ. These are two of our teachers from BRKSL.

At the end of the last semester, Yooseob saem (short for seonsaengnim) wrote each of his students a personal letter. A small part of this letter was the same for those of us travelling together on this trip. This was that we should not be afraid to use what we have learned and interact.

Both he and MJ saem met with us often and helped us put together our route and many of our choices of sites to visit. These were slowly whittled down from a list much longer than we could ever accomplish. Though we always thanked them, I really hope that they know how appreciative we are of everything that they have done.

Today began with triangle kimbap. Kimbap is seaweed wrapped rice mixed with whatever you decide to put in there. There is Kimchi kimbap, tuna kimbap, spam kimbap, etc. Although Lizzy has made these from scratch in the past, this time we grabbed them at the convenience store on the corner.

After we gathered our stuff together, we grabbed a taxi and headed to one of the many parks along the Han River. This is a ‘typical’ thing to do, especially with the family on weekends. I should also mention that parks here are not like parks in the US.

As we meandered along the walking path which paralleled the bike path for most of the park, we passed the expected children’s playground, basketball courts, and tennis courts. There were also croquet courts, inline skate rinks, as well as a swimming pool. There are boat rentals, water skiing, windsurfing, and paddleboats.

Of course it was also the filming site of several Running Man episodes as well as several scenes in Lie To Me. You knew I had to work those in somehow, right?

We found a shady spot and spread out a blanket which Kim had kept from our airline flight. I had a deck of cards which I had remembered to throw into the suitcase at the last minute. We had brought nuts and dried squid for snacks.

Despite the fact that we were only playing Old Maid, the girls were highly competitive with each other. Mallie held her cards like she was a card shark sitting at a high-stakes Texas Hold ‘Em competition and kept trying to give cards to Kim instead of letting her pick. Lizzy kept spreading her cards so that one card deliberately stuck out from the others. There were accusations of cheating from several of them about each other. Kim was ‘Old Maid’ twice; Lizzy once. I guess the four leaf clover that I found as soon as I sat down may have had something to do with my luck at cards. I will have to remember to ask our teachers whether they attach the same significance as we do.

It was harder to find a taxi to take us back than it was to grab one outside the apartment. As it happened, the owner of the BnB texted Lizzy right about that time to see how things were going since we are leaving this location in the morning. Lizzy explained our plight and she walked Lizzy through figuring out our exact location and called a taxi to pick us up. Extra stars for her on the review!

We stop on the way home for lunch and I get galbi jjigae (beef stew). Then back to the apartment to cool off and rest up before dinner. A load of towels gets thrown into the washer and then hung to dry.

All in all, a typical day in South Korea.